Add another habit to the pile of habits that I’m falling out of as I navigate middle age.
I’ve been reading Hacker News since 2008, and I’ve had an account there since 2010. I open Hacker News more often than any other website, probably thirty to fifty times a day. It’s one of the very last social media sites I interact with, even contribute to. I still find it a very valuable source of information, interesting things I would never have learned about, and sometimes very intelligent takes on important events in the tech industry. It’s also a source of some really poor takes, particularly but not exclusively in the post-AI age, and as with my feelings on quitting Twitter, why should I let these things into my poor, soft, vulnerable inner mind just because I’m bored?
I think I’ve spent a lot of time in the last year asking myself: why do I think the things that I think, and why do I approach things the way I do? Sure, much of this comes from my upbringing and schooling and past experiences. But at least some of it comes from what I see and do every day, from my habits and the personalities I interact with and the things I do now, today. And that’s the part that I can influence for future me. I think I’ll do future me a favour and change his pool of influences. Today’s Carl is too much like a Hacker News reader. I don’t think I want that for tomorrow’s Carl.
It’s going to take me a while to get off HN and I doubt I will get completely away from it. But I look forward to disengaging from it in the coming weeks and months.
Other people buy motorcycles when they have their midlife crises. I’m grateful that I just write thinkpieces about websites, it’s much cheaper.